Wasn’t it harder to laugh, cry, flagellate yourself for eating that renegade bear claw that leaped out at you from behind the counter of that Winchell’s Donut shop you don’t remember parking in front of without me there to remind you to do it?

It would be nice if — like all my former boyfriends who turned to monastic celibacy — you, my trusted readers, followed suit. Laying down that middling Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (I could’ve hiked that trail in flip flops!) tossing aside any books written by that John Grisham master-of-the-law-thriller-who-definitely-has-ghost-writers-hidden-in-his-basement-subsisting-only-on-pre-chewed-moki-leaves-via-Alicia-Silverstone’s-mouth. Boycotting any other form of literature, Hemingway, Ayn Rand, the tattoos on the canvas of Angelina Jolie’s ever-shrinking wrists until I returned.

So here I am to save you from what I’m sure was a certain barrenness in your life.

Here is what I did over break:

Read my kids’ 25 Christmas lists then committed Hari Kari.

Read my kids’ Christmas letter to Santa asking if he’s real (after all those fracking lists they doubt him?), then replied cross-referencing all documents that prove Santa is real, but that your parents resent it if he gives you too many gifts hence ruining your character.

I cooked pepperoni pasta (a surprisingly delicious dish) three times for a total of 51 people. I expect to be cannonized for that motherf#@kers!

I swam in a chocolate fountain Henry made.

I had intercourse with so much wrapping paper I think I’m pregnant with Scotch tape.

I drank in the ballpark of twenty bottles of pinot grigio (very healthy due to the grapefruit key notes).

I ate my ass mass in pumpkin pie.

I forgot to have sex with Henry turning him into the Grinch.

I went to Palm Springs with the family where I alternately froze my butt off on the mountain top with the wrong boots causing me to slip and fall like an octogenarian high on mescaline and fried my fanny off in the hot tub with God knows how much Stranger Urine.

And, as Henry took down the tree in the living room, I squatted on the kitchen floor in the midst of an explosion of dirty dishes while my youngest wrapped her arms around me and cried into my hair because she didn’t want 2012 to end because she doesn’t ever want to grow up and leave us.

Be here right now, I thought feeling her dear, strong, growing weight in my arms. And then I thought, God, whose I name I do not know, thank you for my life.

Augustus the camel. Which gave me a case of -- sorry, I just can't help it -- camel toe.